Additively manufacturable micro-mechanical logic gates

Yuanping Song,Jonathan B Hopkins,Julie A Jackson,Andrew J Pascall,Robert M Panas,Samira Chizari,Lucas A Shaw

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08678-0

Yuanping Song, Jonathan B Hopkins + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08678-0

Copy DOI

Abstract

Early examples of computers were almost exclusively based on mechanical devices. Although electronic computers became dominant in the past 60 years, recent advancements in three-dimensional micro-additive manufacturing technology provide new fabrication techniques for complex microstructures which have rekindled research interest in mechanical computations. Here we propose a new digital mechanical computation approach based on additively-manufacturable micro-mechanical logic gates. The proposed mechanical logic gates (i.e., NOT, AND, OR, NAND, and NOR gates) utilize multi-stable micro-flexures that buckle to perform Boolean computations based purely on mechanical forces and displacements with no electronic components. A key benefit of the proposed approach is that such systems can be additively fabricated as embedded parts of microarchitected metamaterials that are capable of interacting mechanically with their surrounding environment while processing and storing digital data internally without requiring electric power.

Highlights

Examples of computers were almost exclusively based on mechanical devices
The mechanical logic gates presented in this work are based on bi-stable flexure mechanisms
The two stable states occupy the same energy with an energy barrier in between that must be overcome to transition between the states. This extra energy required for the transition is released from the system after the transition completes, and can be used to trigger the transition of the bi-stable flexure logic element regardless of whether it is from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0. This is advantageous to a large mechanical computing system because it allows for mechanical digital signals to propagate in a wavelike manner with minimum attenuation

Summary

Introduction

Examples of computers were almost exclusively based on mechanical devices. electronic computers became dominant in the past 60 years, recent advancements in threedimensional micro-additive manufacturing technology provide new fabrication techniques for complex microstructures which have rekindled research interest in mechanical computations. We propose a new digital mechanical computation approach based on additivelymanufacturable micro-mechanical logic gates. The proposed mechanical logic gates (i.e., NOT, AND, OR, NAND, and NOR gates) utilize multi-stable micro-flexures that buckle to perform Boolean computations based purely on mechanical forces and displacements with no electronic components. 1234567890():,; To overcome limitations of semiconductor electronics (e.g., unstable performance and failure in extreme environments1), researchers have been seeking alternative computational approaches and logic computing devices on small enough scales to perform sufficiently fast calculations in a compact space Such micro-scale devices include MEMS (microelectro-mechanical system) logic gates[2,3] and switches[4], alloptical logic gates[5], microfluidic logic devices based on droplets[6] and bubbles[7], and magnetic bubble logic devices[8]. This allows for nearly zero-energy operation in theory[14]

Methods

Results

Conclusion